"Meg, where have you been? I've been calling you and calling you for supper."
Her daughter looked appropriately chastised, head bowed in shame as she stood in the middle of their room, facing her irate mother. "I'm sorry, maman, but I was playing with my friend, and I lost track of time."
"And who is this friend of yours, hm?" Antoinette asked, held out a hand towards her daughter, reeling the girl in so that she could sit her on her lap. At eight years old, the girl was getting too big for such things, but Antoinette would milk the time left for all its worth.
She shrugged. "He didn't tell me his name. But he looked so sad and lonely, I felt bad for him. I wanted to cheer him up with Princess Tildy." She held up her doll for her maman to see.
Antoinette frowned. "He didn't tell you his name?"
Meg shook her head no, fidgeting with her doll's blonde hair. That's odd. There weren't any new staff members that have been added, Antoinette would know. As the instructor, Monsieur Lefevre would have told her of any new additions.
"What did he look like?"
Meg hummed in speculation. "He is tall, about as tall as you, maman. Black hair, eyes that look just like the sun, and he was wearing a mask."
Antoinette's entire world screeched to a halt. An image flashed across her mind of a dirty boy in tattered rags, eyes as gold as twin suns, unkempt raven black hair sticking up in random spikes, a cloth covering the right side of his face.
"Maman? What's wrong?" Meg asked, craning her neck backwards to look up at her mother.
"N - Nothing, Meg." She swallowed, forced herself to push away the burgeoning hope and ecstatic joy that fueled the voice inside of her going 'could it be him could it be him could it be Erik?'. She kept her voice as steady as possible, so that Meg wouldn't know just how much her description of her new friend had affected her mother. "Where did you see him, Meg? He can join you for supper. He must be lonely, like you said."
Meg hesitated before answering, which meant that she had been doing something she shouldn't have been doing. "I was...in the west side of the building. He was standing in front of a broom closet, just staring at the door. He looked like he was very very sad."
Antoinette forced herself to sigh, scolding her daughter for going to the unused side of the opera house where the wood was much more maggot-ridden and weak, when all Antoinette wanted to do was bolt down to the cellars, go find Erik, see him with her own eyes.
"Well, then, you stay here with Princess Tildy, and I'll go find your friend, yes?"
Meg nodded enthusiastically, her chin jerking up and down so quickly Antoinette worried she'd get whiplash. She stood up, placed her daughter onto the bed, told her, "No wandering about, Meg Giry, do you understand me?", and after waiting for her daughter's confirmation nod, went for the door.
The moment she closed it behind her, and out of sight of her daughter, she took off at a run - or as much of a run as her weak leg would allow her - towards the dressing room with the hidden tunnel. Thankfully, the dressing room was unoccupied at the moment, and has been for quite some time after a young Erik scared off everybody who tried to use it by making it seem like the room was haunted.
Since she'd been back, she'd only come to this room one time. And that was the day she came to ask Monsieur Lefevre for a job. She'd stood in front of the wall just like she was doing now, careful not to get her hopes up too high, calculating the probability that Erik had returned from his travels, decided that he'd given her enough time to think that he was truly gone and had come back to claim his home. But when she'd finally gotten the courage to press the trigger, the wall slid open with a struggling groan to reveal a tunnel filled with spider webs, and Antoinette had known immediately that the lack of cleanliness and upkeeping of this entrance meant Erik was still gone.
Unlike that disheartening day, Antoinette had Meg's testimony and not just blind optimism on her side. And when she depressed the trigger, heard the strangled screech of the gears turning, saw the cobwebs that had only increased in quantity and size since that day four years ago, she didn't let it discourage her.
She barreled through the cobwebs, sailed through the labyrinth with the same ease as all those years ago when Erik would test her on her memory of the routes, making sure she wouldn't get lost without him there.
She didn't think she could miss the sound of lapping water as much as she did then, and the sight of the lake only made her speed up even more. Through the shortcut she went, uncaring of the way the cobwebs stuck to her hair and clothes, Erik would probably pick them out later and save them to scare the ballet rats, and the thought brought a wet laugh out of her, her eyes filling with tears as she thought of the mischievous little imp that would pretend to be a banshee at three in the morning.
The door came into sight, and Antoinette fumbled for her keys. In her haste, she jammed it into the lock, unable to perform the trick to getting this handmade key to unlock the door. Despite her hesitance at building up too much hope, she'd failed...miserably.
The door came open with a frustrated kick of her foot, and she stumbled in, not even caring that she left the door wide open as she burst into the living area, searching for her old friend.
Other than the layers of dust that had accumulated over the interior of the room, nothing seemed out of place. The remnants of Erik's attempt at building an organ was still sitting by the wall. The books, papers, and random items were still strewn over the floor like dusty, decrepit landmines.
"Erik!?" she called out, but the only response was a daunting silence.
Hell bent on her mission, she quickly made her way towards the other rooms. The first one was empty. The second one...
She threw open the door, but the sight that met her, was not the same child that she remembered. Gone was the dimply faced boy with the unkempt hair, the cloth mask, the gangly, dirt-smudged body thin from malnourishment.
In this room, sat against the wall next to the door, one leg pulled up to serve as a rest for his right arm, was a young man with slicked back hair, a white porcelain mask covering the right side of his face, the left side chiseled and tanned from the sun. The same golden eyes slowly roamed up to her at her entrance, but he didn't seem startled, most likely having heard her banging around the house looking for him.
Before she even realized she'd moved, she was across the few steps that separated them, her cane clattered uselessly to the ground, and she dropped to her knees, wrapped her arms around his neck.
He flinched violently away from her, hard enough where Antoinette pulled back, frightened she'd hurt him or scared him. He never did like sudden movements.
"Erik?" On her knees, she reached out a wary hand to his shoulder. He shrunk away from her, his eyes avoiding anywhere that came close to where she kneeled on the floor by his side. She studied him for any sign that he recognized her, that he felt the same relief at seeing her as she did seeing him.
But with every second that passed, the happiness started to fade away, concern and a large dose of fear washing over the elation and joy that had sent her running down here. She'd prayed for this very moment for many years, and finally it's come. Never once did she ever picture him shying away from her, unwilling to accept her touch. Not even when she'd rescued him from the gypsies did he react in such a way towards her.
He planted one hand against the floor, one against the wall, and with more effort than it should have taken, heaved himself into a stand. From her position, looking up at him, she saw the way the muscle in his jaw clenched and unclenched repeatedly, his eyes and face dark with a distant sorrow that had been enough for even an eight year old to see.
"He didn't tell me his name. But he looked so sad and lonely, I felt bad for him. I wanted to cheer him up with Princess Tildy."
He turned away from her, physically turning his back on his friend, the square set of his shoulders strong and sturdy underneath his white shirt, the obvious musculature that had appeared in the years since he's been away, the long, lean length of a runner's body in those black trousers.
Was he mad at her? Was he mad that she'd been prepared to abandon him to marry Jean? Why was he so cold, so distant?
"You should leave, Antoinette," he said, the dull rumble of his voice like distant thunder, so different from the tinkling bells of his childhood.
She scrambled upright, unbelieving of what she'd just heard. Surely, she'd been mistaken. "Er - "
"Leave!" he barked, and for the first time since she met the boy, Antoinette felt fear cruising down her spine. Like a prey sensing a predator nearby, her mind told her to run run run!
But she forced that instinct down, the fright and confusion. She didn't know what happened in those eight years he was gone, what he'd been through to bring such a shadow into those golden eyes, but what she did know, was that he was hurting right now. There was such a deep well of anguish in his words, a sense of heartbreak that reminded her very much of the first couple years after the accident and Jean's death.
She pushed on, took a step closer and dared to raise a hand, slow and tentative, she touched her fingers to his shoulder.
He flinched, but not as violently as before, and he didn't yell for her to back off, so she considered that to be a good sign. She attributed him to a wounded and frightened animal, and like one, she approached him, circling around his tense body until she could look him in the face.
Meg was right. Erik was around the same height as her, but at only seventeen, she knew he would keep growing, and she idly wondered how long it would take before she had to look up at him just to meet his gaze.
"Erik," she murmured quietly, voice breaking as she saw how defeated he looked, the way his eyes were clenched shut, shaking with a devastation that would surely overwhelm him should she continue. She didn't know what would happen if she kept prodding him to open up to her, but whatever it was, it was better than him sending her away. "Please tell me what's wrong."
When that didn't illicit a response, she tried again. "Where have you been, Erik?"
Erik inhaled a shaky breath, trembling like a leaf in a windstorm, and then gritted out, "Hell on Earth."
She swallowed down the guilt crushing her heart, edged towards him, and searching for any discomfort, she threaded her arms around his neck, tilted his unmasked cheek onto her shoulder, and simply held onto the poor boy.
For a moment, he was stock still, a flesh and blood statue in her arms, as if unwilling to accept this comfort.
And then...
His arms circled around her abruptly as if he'd suddenly snapped out of his absent and cold daze, crushing her against him as hot tears ran down his face, soaking into her black dress. This was the first and last time she'd ever witness him cry, and the moment was engraved into her mind as she felt her heart breaking with each despairing whimper, each devastated sob that tore itself out of his throat.
She didn't know what he's gone through, but she did know one thing: she wouldn't ever abandon him again. Never again.
The caverns were icy cold, and how the blasted boy could survive in such frigid temperatures, Antoinette didn't know. And usually, she'd be hissing about the chill, clutching a shawl tightly to her body. But right now, she was so furious, she was amazed the icicles hanging from the tunnels' roof hadn't melted.
"Erik!" she shouted, the echoes of the name surging forwards as if reeled back in by its owner. "ERIK, I KNOW YOU KNOW I'M HERE! COME MEET ME AT ONCE!"
She bypassed the route to the lake, braving the various traps that the boy put up in defense of his precious home.
"ERIK!" she shouted, ducked under a piano wire placed strategically at the height of an adult's neck. "YOU'VE GONE MUCH TOO FAR THIS TIME! COME OUT RIGHT NOW!"
Usually, she'd have been met with Erik's wrath for her gall. His temper always has been a thing to behold, just as terrifying as a lion's roar, but more often than not, as physically violent as an irate cat.
She arrived at his door, untouched by the old traps, much too incensed to be grateful he hadn't placed any new ones in without telling her. People have died because of Erik. Not one, but dozens! Whole families, ripped apart by his actions stemming from his damned jealousy!
Oh, Christine had told her everything. Told her and Meg everything from how her angel had brought her down to his home after Hannibal, up until the proposal on the roof. And while Antoinette knew Erik was an honorable man with no intentions in doing anything unseemly, the thought that this innocent girl had been in the lion's den alone, it sent shivers down her spine.
She was not naive, not a woman foreign to the world of violence. She knew Erik was a killer, has seen him do it in her honor before. Hell, the first time she'd met the boy, the occasion had been aptly bathed with blood. She knew the things that Erik was capable of, and to compound it with heightened emotions and a loss of self-control...
Well...
The results of such a moment were currently laid underneath dozens and dozens of blood-drenched sheets in the lobby of the Opera Populaire. She could excuse him for his actions as the Phantom, has even aided him in the years past, but this...this, she cannot excuse, she cannot forgive.
She banged on the heavy door with the side of her fist, calling through the material, "YOU OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT THIS MINUTE, ERIK! DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE!? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOUR ACTIONS HAVE WROUGHT!?"
In her blind fury, she fumbled at the lock with her set of keys. "YOU FOOLISH, STUPID BOY! YOU - ARGH!" She growled like a madwoman when the key refused to budge, frustration building to the point where she shirked her proper upbringing, and kicked the door with the side of her foot. As if on cue, the lock shifted free, the entrance was pushed open, and she stumbled forwards along with its momentum, startled at the abrupt give.
She wasted no time in storming the living area, through the different rooms, shouting as she went, "SHOW YOURSELF, ERIK! OR ARE YOU A COWARD, HIDING AWAY LIKE A PETULANT CHILD!?"
When even that challenge failed to send him running from his hiding spot, she knew for certain that he wasn't there. The home in the bowels of the opera house was empty of its lord and master. So she searched for a paper and pen, scribbled out furious lines of accusations and curses, and ended it off with:
I am done with you, Erik Destler. I wash my hands of you, and absolve myself of any and all actions that your insanity will no doubt think up in the future. Goodbye.
She slapped the note onto the keys of Erik's organ, the sound of the random notes creating a jarring and ominous groan, and then threw Erik's key violently on top of it, the metal ricocheting off of the ivory and landed on the floor behind her as she stormed out of the house, never once looking back.